Three Iraqis, two US soldiers killed in Iraq

Gun and bomb attacks killed three Iraqis and wounded 15 on Monday, security officials said, while the US military said two US soldiers had been killed, the first to die in Iraq this year.A suicide car bomb exploded Monday morning outside a police intelligence office in Baquba north of the Iraqi capital, killing a man and wounding 15 other people, a security official and a doctor said.

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BAGHDAD — A wave of over a dozen car bombings hit central and southern Iraq during morning rush hour on Monday, officials said, killing at least 51 people in the latest coordinated attack by insurgents determined to undermine the government.

DAMASCUS, Syria — Suicide bombers targeted security compounds in Damascus and a car bomb exploded in a pro-regime district there Sunday, killing at least eight people, the latest in a surge of civil war violence in the capital.
In northern Syria, a car bomb killed 12 soldiers in Aleppo, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of activists in Syria for information. It had no other details, and the government did not comment.

Gun and bomb attacks in Iraq on Saturday killed four people, including two children, and wounded a soldier, security officials said.Two children, one six and the other 10, were killed by an improvised explosive device (IED) on a chicken farm in Al-Hashamiyat, 10 kilometres (six miles) west of Baquba, an official in the Baquba Operations Command said.The bomb was presumably meant to kill the children's father, a member of the anti-Al-Qaeda Sahwa militia, the official added.

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AP) — Two girl suicide bombers died when they exploded Sunday in a crowded area near a market in Nigeria’s northeastern city of Maiduguri, injuring 17 people, rescue officials said.
Survivor Abubakar Musa said he also saw among the victims the bodies of soldiers, who were guarding a nearby electric power installation.
Officials blamed the Boko Haram Islamic extremist group that has staged numerous attacks in Maiduguri, the birthplace of the insurgency.

BAGHDAD — A massive bombing by the Islamic State group outside a popular ice cream shop in central Baghdad and a rush-hour car bomb in another downtown area killed at least 31 people on Tuesday, Iraqi officials said.
The attacks come as IS militants are steadily losing more territory to U.S.-backed Iraqi forces in the battle for Mosul, the country’s second-largest city. The Sunni extremists are increasingly turning to insurgency-style terror attacks to detract from their losses.

Kano (Nigeria) (AFP) - President Goodluck Jonathan on Monday escaped a suspected suicide bomb blast after he left a campaign rally in northeast Nigeria, as the country braced for fresh Boko Haram attacks before polling day.

REUTERS/Khalid al Mousily
Nearly 95 people were killed and 200 wounded in two bombings in Baghdad on Saturday, most of them in a busy shopping area in central Baghdad on Saturday as residents celebrated Ramadan, police and medical sources said Sunday.

BAGHDAD – Militants with ISIS on Monday captured a military training camp in western Iraq, inching closer to full control of the restive Anbar province, as a spate of deadly bombings shook Baghdad, hitting mostly Shiite neighbourhoods and leaving at least 30 dead.
The attacks, which came as Iraqi Shiites marked a major holiday for their sect with families crowding the streets in celebration, raised new concerns that the Sunni militant group is making gains despite U.S.-led coalition airstrikes.

Warning: Graphic images
As the Iraqi government bolstered Baghdad’s defences Sunday, the Islamic militant group that captured two major cities last week posted graphic photos that appeared to show its fighters massacring dozens of captured Iraqi soldiers.